Isabel turns circles on the sidewalk to make herself dizzy. So many circles that I’m dizzy. She falls, she recovers, she does it again. She can’t walk; she thinks it’s hilarious. It’s a high.
I wish turning circles did it for all of us.
Just after seven I carry her inside. I don’t want George to think we’re willing to wait. I tell Isabel we’re having a special dinner. I put water on for the noodles. She plays with the plastic bottle of Caesar dressing while I make a salad.
At seven fifteen, I cook the noodles. I look out the window a dozen times.
At seven thirty, I feed Isabel. Noodles with butter. Warm bread. A glass of milk.
“Special?” she asks.
“Special?” I ask back, looking out the window once more. “No. What I said was spaghetti. Spaghetti is special, though, like you—”
She looks disappointed. She should. I shut up.
At seven forty, I eat her leftovers.
At seven forty-two, I say fuck it. I turn off the sauce. I close the front shades. Then I arm the front door and I take Isabel and a party-size bag of M&Ms out to the dove’s nest.
It is still light: the sun is setting, but the sky is clear and blue and bright. We can’t find a single cloud, or the moon. Planes way up leave white trails; I tell Isabel that’s Jezebel up there, racing back and forth before the sun sets. I say she’s searching for the truth. I say it’s hard to find. Harder to tell.
She hee-haws. I tell her about donkeys. I talk about being stubborn. We hee-haw. We laugh. We chew M&Ms with long jaws, side to side.
At eight o’clock, I tuck Isabel into bed. She falls asleep before I say good night, a chocolate ring around her pacifier.
I change into shorts. I run the back stairs, my left leg dragging, until I can’t lift my legs anymore. Then I climb. Then I crawl.
After that I take a shower. I consider the Avonex. I think about Marble. I reconsider.
At nine-fifteen, I fix dinner for two. I eat alone.
I won’t call George. No way. I bet he has a good excuse why he didn’t come tonight; I know he’s as used to being disappointing as I am to being disappointed.
I can only guess what he’s doing that lets the excuse seem good enough.
I pour myself a beer while I think of all the things I could be doing right now, if not for George. Eating out, that’s for sure. Eating out with someone else, maybe. Someone who uses a fork. Who speaks in full sentences.
And, I’d be having a drink. A real drink, because I would actually enjoy a buzz, if I didn’t have anybody to worry about but me.
Halfway through that real drink, I would be me. Undistracted me. Unedited me. The me people like—and want to be with, even—not by default, but because I’m kind of funny and I can be insightful and sometimes thoughtful.
Nothing against Isabel, but it’d be nice to have someone in my life I can’t stop thinking about without knowing a damn thing about him. Someone I want to learn about, and from. Someone I want to wake up with who doesn’t come with stuffed animals.
I go to bed, move a plush turtle out from under my pillow, and stare at the ceiling.
I wonder about Calvin. I think of Tom, and then Lew, the guy I dated before Tom, who legitimately moved out of state for work. I think about Jake, my very first boyfriend. I wonder about Weiss.
* * *
My cell rings just after two A.M. I think I was asleep.
It’s George. “I’m outside.”
I find clothes and put them on and stumble to the front door. I disarm the alarm and unlock the door and open it and block it. I say, “Kitchen’s closed.”
He says, “Soleil put all my stuff out on the alley.”
“You didn’t think she’d be reasonable, did you?”
“Can I stay?”
I put him on the couch in the TV room.
When I come back with blankets, he asks, “Where’s Tom?”
“Atlanta.” This time of night, I don’t owe him any more than that.
I toss a pillow on the couch and I’m about to go back to bed when I realize George is still standing there.
“You need something else?” I ask.
“I don’t know. A hug?”
I give him that, and though I know I’m being a little harsh I’m not going to pretend I’m at all sorry about Soleil, so I say, “There’s spaghetti in the fridge.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I go back to bed.
11
In the morning, I get up and get ready without waking Isabel, who’s in bed with me this time because of George. I was glad he’d come, but I feared we were convenient hosts on his way to another mistake. I want Isabel to know her dad; I don’t want her to suffer the emotional drag-around.
I resist looking in on George on my way to the kitchen. Though I’m sure he thinks he’s been through too much to raise an eyelid at this hour, there’s a part of me that thinks he’ll be gone already, and I need coffee before I face disappointment either way.
I brew a pot and while I wait, I prepare for another normal workday—that is, I sit down and think of all the shit I’m going to have to say to people to make it seem normal.
When I’m sufficiently caffeinated, I decide somebody else in the house needs to be up, too. I pour coffee in a second cup and carry it into the living room. I’m fully prepared to drink it if I find nothing but blankets on the couch.
The blankets are on the floor. George is in boxers, one arm over his face, one foot on the table. He is skinny but flabby, his body deflated, an addict’s.
I could wake him and ask him to help me wake Isabel. I imagine gray light in my bedroom window, my soft kisses as she tries to get her eyes open. I imagine George standing there like a moron.
I put his coffee on the table and go wake Isabel myself.
“It’s a new day,” I tell her. She opens her eyes and smiles, all six teeth. “Guess who’s here to see you?”
“Mabicabi?” she guesses, because who else, really.
“Guess again.”
Though she keeps guessing while I change her pants, her list of possibilities broad enough to include cartoon characters, she doesn’t guess right; sadly, her daddy is the implausible one. “I’ll show you,” I say, and carry her into the TV room.
“George. It’s a new day.” The way I say it this time isn’t meant to bring a smile to his face.
“Oh.” He sits up like he was awake all the while and knows exactly where he is, and how he got here. Or, like someone smacked him in the head.
But then he sees Isabel, and his face reminds me of when we were kids. Little kids. When the people we expected to be there were there, and we were so happy about it.
Still, “We have to leave in a half hour. That means you have to leave in twenty-nine minutes.”
“Wait.” He rubs his eyes. “I thought maybe I could spend the day with Bell.”
I put her down; she attaches herself to my leg and peeks at him. I try to sound nice as I pick up one of the blankets and fold it and say, “What a toddler needs is routine and until you are clear on that concept yourself, you don’t get to play daddy. Spend this twenty-nine minutes with her, before we go.” I gently knee her toward him; she’s curious, and takes a tentative step in his direction.
“Okay,” he says, but he reaches for the coffee instead of the kid.
I toss the blanket on the couch and take her back up in my arms. “You do know that she’ll be my dependent in a little over two months.”
“Isn’t she, you know, already dependent?”
I look down at her, looking at him, leaning into me. I say, “I’ll get breakfast ready.”
In the kitchen, I put out a spread: Greek yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, cereal. Bread. Butter. Almond butter. I hear George in the bathroom. I know he’s in there sloshing toothpaste around in his mouth while he wets his hair. I know he’ll use the hand towel to clean his face and his ears and wipe the mirror and sink. I wis
h I knew what the hell he’s thinking.
Isabel is in her chair happily noshing on berries when George comes in, wet-headed. He notes the breakfast offerings, opens the pantry, and asks, “Is there Peter Pan?” He finds Tom’s stale Corn Pops. Yes, Corn Pops can go stale. So stale even I wouldn’t eat them on a steroid jones.
“Peter Pan?” Isabel asks, a TV twinkle in her eye.
“No,” I say to both of them.
George pours half the cereal from the box and uses too much of Isabel’s milk, which I know he’ll leave in the bowl. I don’t say anything.
I cut the crust off almond-buttered toast for Isabel and say, “I’ve got to make a call. Would you mind helping Isabel get dressed when she’s done?”
“Okay,” George says, like I asked him to launch a rocket.
“Okay!” Isabel repeats, like I told her Daddy was going to launch a rocket.
I stuff the crust in my face and go into my bedroom to call Metzler. I leave another message. I call Elaine Brille and leave another message. I call Andy. I leave a message. Then I peek in Isabel’s room, and she’s still in her jammies, and they’re playing.
“Children,” I say. “Ándale.”
Isabel knows what I mean.
I’m in the kitchen again eating my own piece of toast that’s really just an excuse for butter when Isabel appears wearing her pink-hearted pajama top, long red pants, the shrug sweater meant to accompany a dress that no longer fits, and cheetah-print socks. I don’t care that George lacks fashion sense; it’s the common sense that worries me.
Still, I don’t say anything. Except, “Her shoes are by the door. So are yours. I’ll be there in a minute.” I slip into Isabel’s room and tuck a summer outfit into her bag; there’s no use making George feel like an asshole about every single thing.
We shoe up and say goodbye and head off in our own directions. Not that I know where George is going. Not that I’m going to ask.
“We’ll be home at four o’clock,” I say. “You’re welcome to come back.”
George says, “I’d like to.”
I hear, We’ll see.
* * *
I drop Isabel off at daycare—minus the sweater—and drive to Eleven. I pop peppermint Lifesavers the whole way, though they do nothing to get rid of the metallic taste in my mouth. I may as well be sucking on dimes. I know I should drink more water; I also know that if I do, I’ll waste my bathroom breaks in the bathroom.
Not very strategic. Especially when I don’t know my strategy, exactly.
I bypass the station lot and park on the street. I put on my heels and they’re totally uncomfortable but at least my feet feel something. Finally. The rest of me is a steroid-hot mess, including the cluster of acne that appeared overnight on my chin. One has its own heartbeat. I feel it, too.
When I head inside, I walk the walk of someone who’s got somewhere to be. I don’t give anybody the chance to say hello.
Upstairs, Frank Delgado is at his desk, on the phone. He waves and gives me that punch-line smile; I look back at him and nod like I already heard the joke.
Walter is in his chair, staring at his screen, eyes slits. There’s an energy drink on his desk and from my desk I can smell taurine and sweat.
“Morning,” I say.
“Is it?”
“Have an Adderall,” I say. “I need your brain.”
He sits up. “Hello wall?”
“What?”
“Please explicate.”
“I want to know how to find somebody. Online. Off the record.”
“Shit. I’m never on it.”
I give him Marble’s name and within a minute he’s got access to everything it took the rest of us months to accrue. Phone records, school records, criminal record; it’s all there.
He lets me scroll through it.
“Can I print this?”
“No thank you,” he says. “That makes it evidence. Besides, you don’t need evidence. If you want to find this guy, you just need information.” He toggles screens. “I’ll send it to your phone.”
In my bag, my phone rings. “That’s you?”
“I don’t work that fast.”
Turns out it’s Andy calling, so I send him to voice mail; he doesn’t need to know what I’m up to.
Walter yawns, reaches for my phone. “Let me see that.”
“Why?”
“You want to find the guy, right?”
Handing it over feels like sharing a secret.
He swipes and taps and eventually hands it back. “I set it up so it’ll alert the next time he uses his Ventra card. Last time was yesterday, Pace route 386. That bus goes out to Tinley Park.”
“You hacked Ventra?”
“That word has such a negative connotation. I’m simply redirecting information.” He yawns again. “The alert will tell you when he gets on city transit. It’ll be up to you to catch up with him before he gets off.”
“How do I explain it, when I find him?”
“Also up to you,” he says, “except the part about me.”
“Who?”
“Exactly. You don’t know who installed an app so you can read the files you asked for, either. You’ll get the link in an e-mail from a ghost account—look in your spam. Delete it when you’re done with it. Or before you get caught with it. I also put my private number in your contacts, in case you need tech support. It’s under ‘Dialup.’ As in what you probably still use for home Internet.” He sits back, pleased with himself.
“Whatever,” I say. “I have a bundle.”
“So cozy.”
“I owe you, Walter. What do I owe you?”
He turns back to his screen. “Accepting that premise alone is the same as admitting I did something I shouldn’t have.”
“Never mind, then.” I get my bag. “If Delgado asks, I took an early lunch.”
* * *
It’s early, just before eleven, when I pull into Fatso’s parking lot. I’m planning on multitasking—getting the skinny on Marble at the same time I get a double Fatso with cheese.
Inside, I’m the only customer. The place smells of last night’s grease, the deep fryers and burners idle. I check out the menu and the two girls behind the counter who are young and not Hispanic and not Rosalind Sanchez.
“Morning,” the cook says. He is white and bald and not Fatso.
“Good morning.” I pull up Johnny Marble’s booking photo on my phone and show it, along with my star. “I’m looking for this guy,” I say, “and a cheddar Polish with fries.”
The cook leans over the high counter and squints at the photo. “Still looking for Johnny, eh? Funny, I never thought he had much sense. But apparently he’s outsmarting you all.”
“He freaks me out,” says one girl, which makes the other girl look real skittish.
“Jumbo shrimp freaks you out,” the cook says. “Rosalind is fine, girls. She didn’t die. She quit. Now please, Shawna, show Jen how to ring up a Polish with the discount.” He winks at me, gets the grill going, says, “Don’t listen to them. They’d post selfies with Johnny if they could.”
“They shouldn’t,” I say. “He is a suspect in two other incidents.”
“Yeah? Boy. I’d like to tell that to Rosalind. You know when she quit, she said she felt unsafe here? Blamed me for the late hours. Ticked me off, and also inspired me to put a call in to my attorney. But then I thought: hey girl, maybe don’t walk around by yourself in the middle of the night. Maybe be smarter than your phone. You wanna know: while she was on break one day I saw her trip over that picnic bench out there while she was texting. She skinned herself up good. I’m sorry she got hurt then, and I’m sorry about whatever happened with Johnny. But she can’t blame Fatso’s for being a fathead. I don’t think I’m breaking news when I say she’s got less sense than the so-called monster you’re looking for.”
I didn’t call him a monster—not out loud, anyway. But, “What would you call Johnny?”
The cook thinks about it.
“Johnny, I guess. Just Johnny.”
* * *
Just Johnny. Jesus fucking Christ. I can’t get the same story about Marble twice: he’s a monster. A tomato can. He’s had it rough. He’s as rough as they come.
At least I’ve got more than opinions to go on now.
I sit on the picnic bench Sanchez tripped over and while I eat, I open the app Walter installed; Marble’s information is all there. I scroll, and scroll, and scroll. I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find a document from Tinley Park Mental Health Facility. Discharge papers dated 2012. Diagnosis code DSM 295.90. Released with medication compliance and community placement boxes checked.
You never know what sets him off, Christina said.
That bus goes out to Tinley Park, Walter said.
I’m stunned. Marble, like his mother, is officially nuts.
I copy the diagnosis code and switch to my web browser.
I find DSM 295.90 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s the code for undifferentiated schizophrenia, which is schizophrenia that doesn’t fit the criteria for the usual types of schizophrenia. It’s all kinds of crazy: hallucinations and/or delusions and/or disorganized speech and/or extremely disorganized behavior. Or not. It affects thoughts and sometimes mood. Or mood and sometimes thoughts.
I go back to my browser and search for the Tinley Park Mental Health Facility. I find a news article from 2012, when the overcrowded hospital went bankrupt and was forced to shut down. Patients were either transferred to other sites or released.
What the fuck is with all these cash-strapped hospitals?
As if on cue, Calvin calls.
“Simonetti,” I answer. I’m pretend I’m cool, and that I didn’t just throw down two thousand calories.
“Gina, it’s Calvin—from the hospital?”
“I remember.”
“I thought you’d want to know: St. Claire was readmitted.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. A detective just showed up, though. From Sex Crimes.”
“I’m coming.”
“Okay, but don’t, ah—”
“I didn’t hear it from you.” I hang up.
* * *
When I arrive at Sacred Heart I don’t see Calvin and I don’t look for him either, though I would like to see him because he is nice to look at.
The Lies We Tell Page 13